What Should I Do if I Still Look Fat After Liposuction?

For the very best results from liposuction, this procedure should be performed when you are able to maintain a steady pattern of healthy diet and exercise. In other words, it is best not to do this procedure when you’re at your lowest weight ever. Instead, the procedure should be performed when you are at a stable weight, with diet and exercise patterns that you know you will be able to maintain consistently. If this is the case, you are unlikely to ever gain a disproportionate amount of fat in any treated area.

Thank you for your question regarding the persistent feeling of looking fat even after undergoing liposuction and maintaining regular exercise. Without photos or more detailed information, it's difficult to determine the exact cause of your concern, but it sounds like you may be dealing with visceral fat.

Liposuction effectively removes subcutaneous fat, which is the layer of fat just beneath the skin. This type of fat can be physically removed through the liposuction procedure. However, liposuction does not address visceral fat, which is located deeper in the abdomen around your organs. Visceral fat contributes to an overall appearance of "being fat" and is associated with more significant health risks, including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Since visceral fat cannot be removed by liposuction, focusing on weight loss through diet and exercise is crucial. Additionally, recent developments in weight management medications could also be beneficial. Drugs like Zepbound (tirzepatide) and Mounjaro have shown promising results in helping reduce weight, including visceral fat, through mechanisms that affect insulin sensitivity, hunger, and satiety.

Here are a few steps you can take:

Consult with a Healthcare Provider: Discuss your concerns and the possibility of using new weight loss medications with your healthcare provider. They can assess your health needs and determine if these medications are suitable for you.
Nutritional Counseling: Consider consulting a dietitian who can help you with a meal plan that targets weight loss and helps reduce visceral fat.
Continued Physical Activity: While you exercise regularly, tweaking your exercise regimen with the help of a fitness professional might provide better results in targeting visceral fat. Focus on a mix of cardiovascular exercises, strength training, and potentially high-intensity interval training (HIIT).
Regular Monitoring: Keep track of your progress through body composition analysis if available, as this can help distinguish between visceral and subcutaneous fat levels.
It's important to address this issue holistically, and while another round of liposuction might help with any remaining subcutaneous fat, it won't be effective against visceral fat. The combined approach of diet, exercise, and possibly medication will likely yield the best results.

Sincerely,
Dr. Katzen

Liposuction will not make fat people thin.  It is for changing contour.  5 liters of liposuction, which is considered a massive amount, is less than 10 pounds.

Liposuction helps to shape your contour.  The best candidates for liposuction are those that have localized pockets of fat in excess of other areas.  If you have generalized obesity before liposuction then it is generally hard to notice a significant difference.

Liposuction results depend on weight characteristics and surgical technique.  It is important to maintain a natural contour with liposuction, rather than absolute body fat. Speak to your surgeon about redo liposuction and combine this with diet and exercise. 

Sometimes liposuction needs to be done in stages. Liposuction is used to remove small fat deposits as well as contouring the body. Most people mistake this procedure for the easy way out of diet and exercise. I would recommend to consult with your plastic surgeon to see if you need another stage of liposuction.

Large patients may need several liposuctions to reduce the areas significantly.  Talk to your doc and discuss your desires with him.  It is not uncommon to do staged procedures to get to your end point.  Sincerely,

David Hansen,MD

The ultimate goal for Liposuction should be to improve body contour by removing persistent fat not responsive to diet and exercise.  Liposuction is designed to improve bodily proportions by removing localized areas of bulging caused by fat under the skin.  As with any cosmetic surgery, the goal should be improvement rather than perfection. 

It would be interesting to see some pre- and post-operative photos, and to learn what your expectations of the result of your liposuction procedure were - before you had the surgery.

It may be that your surgeon undertreated your contour abnormalities. Surgical results will vary based on your own tissues, the skill of the surgeon and the modality of liposuction that was used.

It might also be the case that your own expectations of the surgical result with liposuction were not realistic. You may have a great surgical result, but it does not meet your own expectations for what a 'great' result is.

This is tricky business. Hopefully the plastic surgeon that treated you spent some time assessing your expectations for the procedure, and informed you if those expectations were realistic or not.

Keep up the diet and exercise for another 6 months, and then consider revisiting your plastic surgeon again and ask him your question, 'What should I do if I still look fat after liposuction?'

Most Kindly.

Liposuction removes excess fat.  That's all it does.  When it is used on the ideal candidate, liposuction contours small "problem areas" (removing small saddle-bags, for instance).  But sometimes we do liposuction for people who aren't near their ideal body weights, too.  In this case, liposuction is used for debulking larger areas.  Liposuction will not make you lose weight and it will not make you thin.  It will only remove excess fat to extent that it can safely be done.  5L is typically the maximum we can safely remove at one time.  If you need more liposuction than that, it needs to be done in a separate surgical setting.